The Coffee Cup

See the updated version of this post: The Coffee Cup 2.0 published in July 2016.

There’s an old story about Dorothy Day and a coffee cup.  It’s a story that’s gone around a bunch of times, told by many people, all representing Dorothy in their own way.  Like the game of “telephone,” in which the message spoken by the first player at the beginning of the game is completely warped by the last player at the end of the game, the coffee cup story has actually morphed into two distinct versions of what most certainly was one actual event.

In both versions of the story, a Mass was celebrated at Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker House in New York City.  Apparently, instead of a chalice, the priest chose to use a styrofoam coffee cup.  The two versions of the story developed around Dorothy’s reaction.  One account says that Dorothy was perturbed, even horrified, by the idea of using a coffee cup in the celebration of the Mass.  It wasn’t fitting; it dishonored the Lord.  This version of events says that after Mass, Dorothy found the coffee cup and carefully buried it in the earth behind the house, bringing some closure to what Dorothy felt was an error in judgment and a bit of scandal in her House.

The other version of the story says that Dorothy was profoundly touched by the use of the coffee cup.  A small, white, styrofoam coffee cup is the cup of the people, the cup of the poor.  It was perfectly fitting to use it in the sacrifice of the Mass; it honored the Lord.  Whether or not Dorothy buried the cup in this version of events is unclear.  But what is clear is the idea that this Eucharistic cup embraced the plight of the poor.  The coffee cup brought together the suffering of Christ and the very real situation of human poverty.

One interesting thing about this story is that from what I know of Dorothy Day, either version could be true.  She was what you might call authentically Catholic.  She embraced the liturgy in all of its meaning and symbolism.  She understood it; she lived it.  But she also embraced the poor – their marginalization, their pain, her own responsibility toward them.  She understood and lived that as well.  Dorothy Day was not predictable or classifiable.   She was just Catholic.  She was just faithful. 

In our contemporary American Church, where would Dorothy Day fit in?  Would her reaction to the coffee cup place her in a certain “camp”?  I doubt that either side of our polarized Church would be 100% comfortable with Dorothy.  And I doubt Dorothy would spend one minute worrying about it.

After writing this, I did some digging (not literally) and it seems that the most likely “true story” is somewhere in the middle (as usual).  Jim Forest, a close associate and biographer of Dorothy Day, writes that after the “coffee cup Mass”, Dorothy said nothing but simply buried the coffee cup (and the sandwich plate that was used as a paten!) in the back yard.  She was always happy to have a Mass and did not criticize the way the priest chose to celebrate it.  But as in all things, she wanted things to be right.  I also found this striking commentary about Dorothy, also by Jim Forest:

“We live in a post-Christian world.  Christian activity and Christian belief are not normal, even among Christians.  Most of us are constantly trying to conform ourselves to the people at the front of the crowd, so that our religious activities aren’t too ridiculous and too embarrassing and too isolating.  Dorothy Day was able to work through that and to find the place where she would be free to be a believer.  And when you are with one of those people, it hits you pretty hard.”

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For an updated version of this blog post, with memories by Jim Forest, click here.

Love Is My Name

“To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.  Love is my true identity.  Selflessness is my true self.  Love is my true character.  Love is my name.”

-- Thomas Merton

God's First Act of Mercy?

Mercy is a special kind of love.  It is compassionate love for one who does not deserve it, or for one who desperately needs it but can do nothing on his or her own to get it.  A man who has been bested in a duel, who lies on the ground looking up at the sword point of the victor, has but one request – “Mercy!”  The man who has been robbed and beaten, who lies bleeding on the side of the road, needs but one thing from all the passers-by – mercy. 

A beautiful hidden gem of a verse in the third chapter of Genesis may just be a description of God’s first act of mercy.  Of course we should qualify this by acknowledging that the stories of creation and the fall of humanity are not to be read literally in the sense of historical narratives.  But they are stories of fundamental, essential spiritual truth, and for that reason, we can and should mine them again and again, drawing out of them all the sparkle and richness and value that we possibly can.

The verse I am referring to immediately follows the account of the first sin of Adam and Eve, the self-centered choice that begins a downward spiral of escalating violence and ultimately leads to the destruction of all but a small remnant of humanity (and all of this by Genesis 7!).  The choice made by Adam and Eve to oppose God justly leads to their punishment, including banishment from the Garden of Eden.  But it is this expulsion that prompts God’s mercy.  It is as though he is thinking of the difficulties that await his children (for though they have sinned they are still and always will be his children) beyond the garden.  Although he knows that Adam and Eve must leave the place of their sin, he wants to protect them.  And so, “[f]or the man and his wife, the Lord God made leather garments, with which he clothed them” (Gen. 3:21).

True, you may say God was only covering the newfound shame of Adam and Eve (3:10-11).  But he could have left this task to their own toil.  Instead, he takes it upon himself to clothe them.  He covers their nakedness, and in doing so, he protects them from the brutal sun and the harsher conditions they are likely to find outside the paradisal Eden.

In this verse, we read and imagine an unforgettable scene, an admittedly anthropomorphic image that conveys a very accurate truth about our God.  Even when we bring suffering upon ourselves, he does not abandon us.  He is moved with compassion.  He himself takes up needle and thread and sews up protective garments, handcrafted from the bounty of his own creation, to clothe us in his mercy. 

Memory of the Garden of Eden by Vincent Van Gogh

That Mighty Heart

“Long ago and far away an ordinary man called John laid his head on the breast of Christ and listened to the heartbeats of the Lord. Who can venture to guess what that man felt as he heard the beat of that mighty heart? None of us can ever be in his place, but all of us could hear, if we would but listen, the heartbeats of God, the song of love he sings to us whom he has loved so much.”

 -- Catherine Doherty, The Gospel without Compromise

 Read a longer excerpt here.

A Joyful Life

The word “joy” has the connotation of exuberant happiness, big smiles, and irrepressible optimism.  When we hear people say Christians should be joyful, we might wonder if we measure up.  Doesn’t this kind of joyfulness come more easily to some personalities than others?  In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis offers an insightful commentary on joy that might give us a better understanding of what the word truly means as a way of life:

“There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter.  I realize of course that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty.  Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.  I understand the grief of people who have to endure great suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress:  ‘My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is…  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.  Great is your faithfulness…  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord’ (Lam. 3:17, 21-23, 26)” (EG 6).

An elderly woman who was looking back at her life once told me, “I was content.”  She meant that she was not always happy, but she was at peace.  It was a simple way of describing a long life full of good things but fraught with difficulty.  One might describe the life of Christ himself in much the same way.  The joy of a Christian is realistic, genuine, compelling – it is not manufactured or manic.  As Pope Francis wrote, joy adapts and changes.  Sometimes it is exuberant, but sometimes it just “waits quietly.”  The essence, the undercurrent, of Christian joy is a habitual falling back on the steadfast, infinite love of the God who saves and who holds all things in existence.